SF Giants Opening Day roster likely to give fans what they have been wanting

The SF Giants finalized the Opening Day roster on Wednesday. It is just the first iteration of the 2025 season, but at first glance, it is abundantly clear that the lineup will have a lot of stability this season if they remain healthy.

SF Giants Opening Day roster likely to give fans what they have been wanting

It is a stark contrast to the rosters from the past few years where platoons were leveraged much more. Those rosters also led to quite a few interesting roles on defense. If a player had experience at a position, the Giants would leverage that for better or worse.

This was often done to give the Giants a platoon advantage in the lineup. Austin Slater was arguably the perfect encapsulation of that approach. For years, he was used against left-handed pitchers because of his success in those matchups. Platoons can and do work, and many teams use them.

The Giants were one of the more aggressive teams in using platoons. If it was not abundantly clear by now, Buster Posey is running the organization with Bob Melvin as his on-field leader.

The Opening Day roster does convey much more lineup stability than we have seen in recent years. In particular, the lineup is light on left-handed hitters. In fact, they only have four on the roster, including Jung Hoo Lee, LaMonte Wade Jr., Patrick Bailey, and Mike Yastrzemski. The Giants will not platoon all that much because there are just not enough options to do so.

There is a good chance that Melvin still platoons the right-handed-hitting Luis Matos with Yastrzemski. The Jerar Encarnación injury means that Wilmer Flores will see the bulk of the time at DH. Flores could shift to first base when a tough lefty is on the hill.

The Giants will not necessarily platoon Bailey, but his off days will likely correlate to who is on the mound. If it is a southpaw pitcher, Sam Huff will get the nod more often than not.

The rest of the bench includes Casey Schmitt and Christian Koss. They are behind Tyler Fitzgerald on the depth chart to start the year, and all three hit from the right side. Fitzgerald is the starter, but Schmitt and Koss could see time when he along with Matt Chapman and Willy Adames need a day off.

Chapman and Adames are some of the more durable players in baseball, so there just might not be too many innings available on the left side of the infield.

The Opening Day lineup featured Chapman, Adames, Fitzgerald, Flores, Bailey, Jung Hoo Lee, and Heliot Ramos. You will see these players in the lineup a lot, so the lineup the Giants rolled out on Thursday against the Cincinnati Reds will likely be the primary lineup to start the year. Many fans have been wanting more stability in the lineup for years, and it looks like they will get that.